Despondent
by xxSilverStaRxx
Summary: A typical good-hearted girl. A playboy. A jealous girlfriend. But then again, things aren't always what they seem.  A new school year has started and right before winter break, Mikan happens to find a certain raven haired boy and their story begins. NxM


**Despondent**

_Silver && Star_

_Chapter One:_ Confrontation

The noon air was cold, and the whole world seemed to be covered with a think layer of snow. But despite the cold, the numbness of her toes in her boots, the feeling of being bitten by the light breeze that passed her ears and bit her nose, it was still a beautiful, nostalgic, picture-book scenery.

_Gakuen Alice isn't that bad_, Mikan thought as she trudged through the snow under the white light coming from the white clouds, the white ground, and white caps on the tips of the evergreen trees. It was moments like this, where coming to the academy all worth it. It made the unbreakable social barriers and the rush of school just a bit more bearable.

Under the snow, she could forget about all her troubles: Mr Jinno and his math tests, Hotaru being so evasive, alices… _Alice_ was something that had completely changed her life. Of course, Hota-chan had one too. Without it, she would have never been able to left her hometown and see the real world.

Or so she told herself. Sometimes the big cities with their maze-like schools and dorms and _people_ just seemed so overwhelming… so different from what she was used to. A small pang of semi-jealousy stung her heart as she remembered how Hotaru had settled in the moment they had gotten into the school.

Her best friend just had this charisma, there was no other way to explain it. She had the ability to attract people's attentions and make tonnes of new friends without even lifting a finger. On the other hand, she had to work for friendship, and study her neck off to pass those horrid tests.

She hummed softly under her breath as she reached the edge of the Northern forest. A thin layer of trees separated her from her dorm, which was _conveniently_ located at the farthest of the campus. Please note the sarcasm there. Well… at least sceneries like this made it quite worth it.

It was her freshman year, and winter break, which would start in two days, would give her time to think over everything and absorb her surroundings. At the same time, it was her first Christmas away from home, hopefully Jii-san wouldn't be too lonely.

_Walk, walk, left, right._

Although Mikan had been quite an optimistic person, she wasn't blind or ignorant either; and she had these moments (but less than the average person) when pangs of insecurity would hover over her. After all she _was_ only human, not a saint or something.

_Left boot, right boot, left boot and right boot._

_Huh?_ she wondered as she stopped walking and looked down. Obviously she hadn't tripped (yet) and she wasn't jumping, and she believed that she only had two legs…

Her eyes trailed from the ground covered snow to an easily unnoticeable black lump beside the tree that seemed, for a second, to have a foot.

_Oh gosh, it's a person_. She thought as her eyes trailed over the black hoodie (which helped to camouflage) and the figure leaned limp against the tree bark and was have covered by snow.

"Hey, you know you shouldn't be sleeping in the snow," Mikan said with a slight quiver in her voice. _They couldn't be dead, right?_ "Hello?" she asked and extended her arm to reach over and shake the figure by the shoulder. Something wet soaked through her glove moments later (after futile shaking efforts).

There was blood on her glove. It took her a second or two to realize that it wasn't her blood, and another few seconds to slam on full panic mode. _This really shouldn't be happening to me, or to anyone!_ Her breath condensed into small white clouds of steam as a sudden strength came over her.

On a single try, she pulled the person up from his half buried position and a gust of wind blew their hood off. _Who would get into fights at times like this?_ She wondered as she studied the sleeping face of a certain raven-haired boy. Judging from his tanned skin color, he obviously wasn't born in cold climates.

Like the big bad wolf, she huffed and puffed, somehow managed to get him onto her back and puffed all the way back to the door. Obviously going through the front door wouldn't be a good idea, it'll arise too much attention. What really annoyed her about the academy was the strict social hierarchy on campus. Not everyone was on 'her side' and if an ugly rumour gets out, or the guy is below on what she calls the 'food chain' then, she'll be a cast out.

It wasn't that Mikan cared a lot about the social hierarchy, it was just being a cast out from the academy would be _so_ troublesome. First of all, she wouldn't get to visit Hota-chan. And then she wouldn't make new friends and have a horrible school life.

Anyways, perhaps this unwelcomed visitor didn't want to be seen in her dorm anyways.

The back door creaked a little bit and the hallway seemed to be dim. Only a light was on in the living room where voices spoke.

"That's like a campus fairytale. It's so romantic!"

With most difficulty, Mikan tried to climb the stairs. Her arms were long screaming at her to drop the weight, and she couldn't hold onto the weight of the boy much longer. Thankfully he was pretty light for a guy, as in he wasn't 190 pounds or something.

"Yeah, but I heard rumours that things aren't going so well between them now."

He weighed more than her, probably, but wasn't too heavy.

"Isn't that good? Then you can sneak him from under her nose."

Probably more than 120 pounds though. She should have taken on more weights when they were doing the fitness unit in Physical Ed.

"But from what I heard, she's pretty scary you know. With the soul sucking or soul manipulating alice... No wonder she's the queen bee."

The voices faded away from her as she entered her room from the dimly illuminated wooden hallway. She gently laid him against the hallway as she searched for her keys in her pocket. A couple of moments later, they were safely in her room. She wasn't in such a hurry as to forget to take his shoes off before putting him on her bed. The soaking clothes, though, would be a problem.

To take, or not to take off, that is the question, she pondered as she searched around for that old first aid kit of hers – the one that Jii-chan had stuffed into her luggage without her noticing. The one with that farewell note…

She sharply breathed in as she realized that this was not the time to be reminiscing. There was a possibly dead or dying person on her bed (hopefully it was the latter) and she had to do her best to save him.

Finally finding the first aid kit underneath her clothes near some shoe boxes, she trotted over to the boy.

_Now… how would I do this?_

* * *

The sheets are warm, he thought in a dreamy state. Instinct nagged at the corner of his mind, telling him to wake up, find were he is, and how much damage he had taken.

But how long was it since the last time he had been able to lie around in a bed that wasn't a hospital bed and wasn't in that creep's room.

Judging by the warm heat radiating off of the walls, and the slight crackling of a fire, he could tell that he was safe. Not in some deranged cell, not in some cold basement, _safe._

His body was still sore from the mission the night before, and then he had gym and was too lazy to change so he just wore his waterproof pants over them. And then that Luna came up behind him with –

_Luna._

His eyes snapped open and he bolted out of bed only to see a girl hunched over a wooden desk, completely oblivious to his being.

"And the inverse of this function…" she muttered under her breath. Obviously this wasn't Luna, or some of her creepy little brainless followers. He felt a stab in his heart as he thought of her little groupies, because by now, _she'd_ be part of them. And it was all his fault.

The room was pretty small and cozy but looks were always deceiving. First of all, why was he in his gym shorts? Hopefully this wasn't some stalker fangirl of his who had gotten their claws on him.

After years of missions, it was impossible for him to be on wide alert of every movement or else one would quickly be trapped in paranoia. He had developed a sense where he could relax (or rather be less alert at least) around people who didn't mean to do harm, which probably explained why he didn't wake up earlier.

Maybe the cold had gotten to him a bit too, despite his alice of fire.

"Hey," he rasped, and a cut on his should stung as he reached over to run his fingers through his hair. The girl whipped her head around and stared in shock at him, as if she had forgotten that he was there in the first place. At least this means that she isn't some stalkerazzi. "Who the heck are you?"


End file.
